Hitherto, various 5-pyrazolone series couplers have been utilized as a magenta color image-forming coupler of a silver halide color photographic material. However, the magenta color image-forming dye to be formed by the coupling reaction with the 5-pyrazolone series coupler and the oxidation product of an aromatic primary amine developing agent has a harmful side-absorption near 430 nm in the short wavelength side of the main absorption, in addition to the main absorption, and the side-absorption causes a decrease in the sharpness of the magenta color formed to lower the color reproducibility of the color photographic material containing the coupler.
In order to eliminate such harmful side-absorption, various studies have been carried out for a long period of time in the field of photographic light-sensitive materials and, as a result, various magenta couplers have been proposed, including, for example, 1H-pyrazolo[1,5-b]benzimidazoles described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,061,432; 1H-pyrazolo[5,1-c]1,2,4-triazoles described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,725,067; 1H-imidazo[1,2-b]pyrazoles described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,500,630; 1-pyrazolo[1,5-b]-1,2,4-triazoles described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,540,654; 1H-pyrazolo[1,5-d]tetrazoles described in Japanese Patent Application (OPI) No. 33552/85 (the term "OPI" as used herein refers to a "published unexamined patent application"); 1H-pyrazolo[1,5-b]pyrazoles described in Japanese Patent Application (OPI) No. 43659/85, etc. The magenta dyes to be formed from these pyrazoloazole series magenta couplers have little of the above-mentioned harmful side-absorption and, in particular, the 1H-pyrazolo[5,1-c]-1,2,4-triazoles described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,725,067, the 1H-pyrazolo[1,5-b]-1,2,4-triazoles described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,540,654 and the 1H-pyrazolo[1,5-d]tetrazoles described in Japanese Patent Application (OPI) No. 33552/85 can form magenta dyes having sharp visible absorption spectra and therefore can provide magenta color image-forming dyes with an improved hue.
However, it is still desired to obtain such couplers which are able to provide sharper absorption spectra and which are able to form sharper colors than the magenta dyes formed from the thus-improved pyrazoloazole series magenta couplers mentioned above.
In addition, since the molecular extinction coefficient of the magenta dye formed from the pyrazoloazole series magenta coupler is at most 6.times.10.sup.4 l.multidot.mol.sup.-1.multidot.cm.sup.-1, it is desired to obtain other couplers capable of providing a greater molecular extinction coefficient. Dyes having a greater molecular extinction coefficient can provide the desired optical density even when they are used in a small amount. Therefore, the silver halide photographic material containing the coupler providing a greater molecular extinction coefficient can have a thin film thickness, whereby silver halide photographic materials would have improved sharpness, would be suitable for more rapid processing and, additionally, would be less expensive.